1996 Road Movie Back East

1996  Road Movie  Back East  

The profane world is the subject 

what we can see, and buy, that’s trouble enough,

forgetting that inner space 

although it is obvious 

that it is becoming the only space 

Left, the new West the reaches 

of the Romantic inner distance, 

the debased art, the empty church

everything for sale, 

in the what’s new

next economy, picking through for Poetry, 

“negotiating rapture” I’ve heard it said.

beyond innocent transcendental reach, 

my poem repeats,

original thought

if this was all there was, I’d end the poem here--

in desperation

add glamour to that despair

of never reached reality, the ordered poem 

what Long Island had been.

Looking for new poem, to keep going,

flipping through the fashion magazines, 

having replaced art becoming the art, 

next thing, 

my smallest creation, 

I revel in this, change--

the same bare place, becoming 

transparent eyeball, I am nothing 

I see all, this crystal death

the loneliest air, not less was myself, 

the compass of that sea 

tossed about 

beyond what I can stand,

these are the words that save me

defeat into victory, I go on, I was the world 

in which I walked

I found myself more true, 

more strange, beheld 

her solitary there, 

for there she sang, the innocence

the maidens song, could have 

no ending,

I sing, beyond.

What transcendence? wholly critic

body fluttering,

wholly body

empty sleeves,

constant cry,

the old mother--

what is this spirit?

for it was the spirit 

that we sought--

and knew, content to know 

our element, is of ice, 

a wintry air sighs for me, 

night wind,

shouts for me loudly

Dazzling and tremendous,

how quick, 

now and always, the sunrise 

would kill me, if I could not 

now and always

send it from out, from me

The Sea!

A power

over the sea,

The poem,

a forever cycling power of the mind

over a universe of death

the blank, blocks the new world, 

the poets mind

over death,

it was her voice, 

that made the sky 

acutest, at it's vanishing, 

beauty, Oh, blessed rage 

the order, the maker's rage, for assembly

the scholar of one candle, 

he opens the door, (the reduction fails)

and he feels afraid, 

• 
  

Thrilled beyond belief, to be alive, 

Greeting the dawn, 

Come with me--, I’m full of it!

Achilles to Crispin, 

into the classic space.

To modern Cartoon, Davy Crockett, 

Raccoon hat, into the hills, 

Hopi way

must, keep up 

the Indian design, 

The flute drifting through crystal space, 

unending, wind of my soul, 

of our souls

walking in beauty

broken pieces

in my eye

the Hopi way

the mystery of that eye

high up in the wood

glinting-

alive

my own-- clearing the space

to see-- choosing sight

keep on with the dream

I’m off--

before the sweeping tide of reality

the politic of resenting

belief, 

against the desert

That oldest self, before an even older god

the aesthetic dignity, a covering angel

of the terrible beauty

NECESSITY

I stopped, once--

twice, the bird

I saw an eternity

in both 

stops

in the music, that eye, 

the bird, I thought  it watched, me--

cocked its head.

I trying to understand? it flew 

through the stream of sun

paint flooding through, 

a rhythm of mantra

revolving.

Woven varied design, blown apart,

the center will not hold,

over again, never quite right,

shards of Indian way,

each year it was harder to make the painting 

that would lift one out of despair, 

• 
  

on to the es--Studio! there the work

of the WORLD, to be done, 

set beside EARTH 

--to keep ones feet planted 

within the place, revolved, 

YES, telling some story!

yet unclear. the Indian (ME) 

native to us all, American, 

Beauty in the face of death, 

night and day, 

revolving a mantra

the colors, the shapes, and line

the different shapes these fragments 

thoughts come in relation

perspective, context, changing

light

--now, swerve

the hero reaching, from inside, 

sight on distance

coming together, crashing loud, 

sound and push

• 
  

There is much cynicism in these pages. The poetic what some think of as Academic to me Sacred— meaning well formed thoughts and poetry, is reached for.

That reach is justified by the pessimistic attitude of the fallen art world to commercial interest.

It is an unseen irony of my art. Reaching out from a world that had become fallen to disorder.

1996 Road Movie Taking off

1996  Road Movie  Taking off 

1. 

this luxuriant dripping, green-- is!

and sinks me into reverie 

of the Yellow Breeches Creek, 

the elementary stories, 

of Indians and Hiawatha, washing 

in the stream, coming out with 

yellow britches, 

the waterfalls, and a memory 

of a smell, the crayfish, we caught 

with sock protected hands, 

in crevices of rocks, we stuck our hands 

into, my head is awake

2.

to these first loves, 

nostalgia slows and but, maybe another day

I'm off!

I shift in my seat, still remembering the 

feet dangling, fishing 

ordering, the ideas set 

beside me, to become 

agon, to fight

at limits of strength 

at heights, sought!

the hills steepen

and back down through West Virginia, 

that old feeling  of back water, 

steep slate gothic roof 

hill to mountain, old red and gray, 

brick and granite, 

3. 

spaces and colors

a line weaving through

kept in order, they proceed, 

in spiraling fashion, style 

in cycle, dreaming winter

thoughts, attaining spring

and summer height of mind

falling

into autumn,

to depth

of winter

spiraling form, 

4. 

The West, incredibly--

as I cross that invisible state line, crystalline shapes 

and cotton candy clouds reflecting earth, red 

planted in green, turning to prairie 

grass deepening into sage, thunderheads 

beyond covering  mountains in distance 

anvil like cardboard cloud, 

pinned to flat lonely space, v-aroom, the Greyhound 

bus to Amarillo, passes in black smoke 

and I'm left, 

out there, as a Santa Fe train, a B-line 

into the distance, my spirit 

here enlarged,

5.

wind that blows through it all 

feeling the eternal 

slowness 

of a turning center, 

the time-lapsed clouds 

shadows fleet

over land, black and white 

design of a vase

swoosh--

and voices of the land, 

and Asian influence, 

the narrow road connecting 

to eternal return and Indian hero journey, 

6.

AMBIVALENT

destroyed places, ironic Hero!

singing of what is left?

American Myths, 

off again 

on my journey, that is me the HERO

large, inside 

arms spread to outside, 

Summer Sun, to sing, 

deflecting, mocking, stinging-- 

death, saying no-- I say yes, 

got to keep on somehow

making something of the wreckage

I’ve always said, Yes, 

just do it-- swoops, 

continuing 

the cycle

7.

we WERE GOING TO A HOPI DANCE

a corn dance,

dancing for rain 

and thanks for what crops were received

Kachinas represented these feelings 

and prayed for the life, to continue

a tradition of designs carried selves

weaving disparate places like Phoenix 

and Hotevilla together, 

8.

Amazing!

beyond anything we’d ever seen, 

greens, blues, wow, a real fairy land 

of Indian Paintbrush, 

yellow, red, and purple, 

back lit glowing 

orange- red psychedelic, 

the alpine reflections 

and variations 

in green and blue 

in waters reflecting all of it, 

Road Movie consists of two trips to the west and back. This is the first going to California.

I guess part of the reason I am editing this is that it is very sprawling and I was looking for the poem’s essence.

1996 Road Movie Road Rant & Buddha Rambling

1996 Road Movie  Road Rant & Buddha Rambling

of beauty
Utamaro's home, Yosemite falling-- 
those dharma bums, 
like the mad Chinese, 
Cold Mountain

those guys at Sabrina basin 
Big Sur, the Birds of America, 
Hokosai and Audubon
gita-sutra, Zen moment 
sitting at Glacier Point, 

little golden Buddha 
to represent something, else yet still--
100 years of Endo push, 
flowers and blue

hidden Pahari histories, 

the light 

comes and goes,

bellows breathe

earth revolving,

flowers bloom--

in and out

the rhythm

dark and light

repeating archetypes

of different seasons, new beginnings

a fall 

into edenic possibility, 

this, journey to the west

this, self against the demise, 

fighting battles 

in the sunny blue

plunging to winter dream, 

yelling across the void 

madly singing

Krishna, Buddha, Walt

all revolving

gulping

after the formlessness

speeding

through

sparkled spaces, one with the stars

walking on

I’m stepping across America 

through daisies,

the American Grain, Davy Crockett, 

Blue Man, with bells--

blue Jay way, 

head full of diamonds 

and black sneakers

planting sunflowers, oh my beloved 

Crispin, friend, tending the birds

Chaplinesque, 

a butterfly net in Toulomne Meadows, 

a fool for art, 

here in the mountain air

gone fishin’, 

insane muttering,

across the silences

I’m out in the trees--

It’s all there is!

I haven’t even started,

but I needed to hear myself,

say it 

to know it.

The Road Movie poem was mostly detailing painting trips out west. Besides that though, it was often an exploration into the profane as subject. Much as Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, subjects of the profane world would come up, subjects seeming of the more contemporary world. Subjects which came up but are not yet integrated, so not poetry, or a part of any wholeness.

I find as a result most of it doesn’t hold up as poetry. I could not even find a good example of what I am saying as it is not yet formed just a word or two like Bronco Billy? A hint of an archetype but stuck in a reference to a contemporary situation which will probably be forgotten. 

Maybe what is sacred is that which finds it’s place in the heirarchy which we then call poetry. Much of that poetic subject it seems the contemporary world has tired of.

It is somewhat like tiring of nature! Tiring of that which is, Out There! We are very much today of the political urban existence. It doesnt seem to make what I am thinking of as good poetry.

1996 Road Movie, leaving, Long Island

1996 Road Movie  leaving, Long Island 

the gaudy mythos, 

revolving 

down 

into Orphic AMERICA 

from under his Mountains,

this mock hero,

this fiction into a historic journey 

of the second chance, 

the American west, kicking the shards in 

dust and tumbleweed, 

Sierra in distance, 

the bird, 

out there, 

somewhere, in the sun

and hoped for future.

a moment

cycling 

revolves crystal

re-dreamed, 

the gods echoed in the sky,

Become that tree!

The oneness in copying, 

Well, he wondered

We becoming it? 

One,

to be one, with

breathing with these 

cycles of universe, 

copying,

becoming--

 “and to all these who sold out the 

imagination,” he was unsparing,  

”...who killed 

the red headed bird?”

to name this self 

and renaming it,

this self, me

the not me

conscious me

unconscious me

real me.

I have picked out the more optimistic parts. There was a time in the Art World that I struggled through much negativity. It was a disappointment to find it seemed that bent of mind was winning out. Possibly these ensuing years have been a struggle to hold my own against this prevailing trend in culture.

1995 Road Movie “...had been a happy time.”

I'm continuing into Road Movie...

1995 Road Movie “...had been a happy time.” 

The mocking bird sets down on 

the fallen vase,

the wind quickens-- 

a reddening sky, the weather cools , 

I’m looking for the fish to arrive,

the new briskness of darkening skies

out back here, my studio 

painting outside, the hobo style

listening to jazz on the college station, 

hearing the resignation 

this place brings on, in my voice,

sounds like Schuyler and Ashbery, 

Fairfield and Georges

like that old recording of Pollock,

gone

god, but I love the good old fashioned 

sitting out in the air, 

mucking around for clams, burned 

and red, waiting till things are just right

this second order of reality 

A few beach roses left, 

mostly the red orange hips

the lilies are gone and the trumpet vine

out back, the candle is 

bleached, white 

from a certain red, the little boy in bronze 

amid some sun flowers 

the broken shells 

the rope intertwining 

the vase

“wading into the pink translucence” 

Ah! this is where I should be

the water rippling

These lines from, Road Movie, a continuing long poem I started in 1999. I was going over notes from 1995. I continued into 1997. There are twelve sections to the poem, this selection from the first.

#9, 1992, The Villa of the Sun

#9, 1992, The Villa of the Sun

Crossing the Susquehanna, 

the Blue Mountains, ahead-- 

feeling my way, 

a rainy South greets me 

as the Sun is shining yonder, 

in Mississippi arriving at the Gulf, 

a bushel of peaches 

a bag of blueberries, 

an aqua, emeralded

sea, beyond

white sands squeaking

warm, friendly, lapping waves.

17.

Oh! green, green 

wave folding over 

into a gurgling surge, enveloping, 

Driving back to camp 

high in mountains, roadways

nearing the tops of pines--

a Western Tanager, unconcerned, 

flashes in the waning sun,

snagging a fly... 

a merging of Imagination

and things as they are--

tired, making a way to camp.

Trying to figure, the pines in shadows,

dancing in the fire’s light, 

amongst icy cold frightening stars, 

curling down and away 

inside a down bag, retaining a warmth.

“Adventures and Wonder”--

scrawled on my paint box, enthralled!

A turn towards Montana

brings a surprisingly early snow

propelling me on my way.

A big sky, cold with 

low grey ceiling of clouds, 

out on a splendidly lonesome road.

Tightening the box of paintings 

to the car’s roof for the trip ahead, 

driving and reading 

about a hurricane about 

to strike Miami, 

it will be in Long Island, 

as I approach home.

Barcelona Neck, these symbols, 

evaporating in a whirl 

of rope, pots, flowers burnt in the sun 

swallowed up into the sky

a grid appearing, the wall flaking

crumbles, starts to fall--

a fiction composed upon the wall.

25.

From muddled silhouettes 

to comic form,

the black and white depth, 

to Barcelona Neck’s clarity

an old stage is being cleared

objects flowing

their prolific meanings

past, like the same flowers

they change... die

as if, it all was once believed.

(“...but it got us through.”) emptied 

to be filled, once more.

A figure with walking stick, 

greeting the birds, 

appraising space, tipping his hat, 

painting in the sun, 

reading in front of the Sunflowers--

A desire, at this late hour.

I am struck by how fragmented my poem had become. The abstraction of the city and its demands upon me had created a want or need for the spaces I had discovered in the West. This escape was to become my life of the next 10 years. The last section here was more of what was to come, than any real concentration on the Villa imagery-- the faded, cracking, old fresco which I had dreamed would be the what I still dreamed of creating-- The Myth of America.